Knock on wood. Machines mostly safe here, hoping it stays that way.

Check that the Windows groups have logins assigned in SQL Server.

Check any other Windows groups that have logins for DENY permissions. NOTE that I hate DENY permissions for this reason.

If...

Ultimately, no.

I've written on this a bit (http://voiceofthedba.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/capacity-planning-for-new-hardware/), but without a real workload, you can't do anything other than guesstimate. There are formulas that look at data types, but they...

The advice above on differentials is correct. One other note, please keep all log backups for all full backups. There is always a possibility that your latest full backup does...

0 should be infinity.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlclient.sqlcommand.commandtimeout%28v=VS.71%29.aspx

I would always have a clustered index. Unless I had a really good reason not to have one. I'd read some of the articles mentioned, especially any by Gail on...

Just a clarification. By SSD, I assume you mean SQL Server drive, but that's not the acronym we use. SSD is usually solid state drive these days.

However, if things are...

It's not clear what you mean by a few things. I don't know how "browsing" updates something. Browsing implies looking (SELECT), not changing. If your application changes something, then that's...

No, just to be clear.

You cannot restore system databases (master, model, msdb) from earlier versions to newer ones. As Anthony mentioned, you need to script things out and run the...

Look at FOR ATTACH in here. It says that you can attach earlier versions: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms176061.aspx

Note that the service account running on the new server needs rights to get to the SQL 2000 server. Along with that, use Anthony's advice.

If you print @Command, can you run it from a command window?

Have you checked the proxy that runs xp_cmdshell for issues?

The error is what is says. The CTE needs a semi colon before it runs.

If you have a CTE using the WITH statement, you can't have this.

select col1 from mytable

with...

Satyen has what I'd suggest. The connection dialog in SSMS may not default to master.

Quick hint, write a select to find the rows you want to update first. Make sure that it returns the data you need.